Bruce St. Clair MAKING ADS

MAKING IKEA ‘TREENAP’

STEALING CHRISTMAS.

The altruistic nature of this particular Christmas tale puts an unexpected spin on the term naughtiness. Three kids steal a christmas tree. Once you realize what they’re actually doing, you can’t help but be slightly moved, its a very sweet christmas tale.

I loved the idea the minute I read the script, simple, endearing and always good stuff coming from IKEA.

I’ve aways wanted to shoot an IKEA campaign, finally got the chance!

We scouted close by the city for the end scene, not all the woods worked because of the green leaves everywhere.

AUTUMN COLORS

CAST

Its never easy shooting with kids, even more so at night. But these three made the directing pretty easy. It’s interesting how they naturally become friends even though they just met for a couple of hours in the fitting the day before. They became a team and this helped them and I through the night.
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AGENCY, CREW AND OTHERS…

I was feeling pretty bad, had a flu during the shoot so I was more intent on keeping myself in an appropriate health state rather than take loads of stills as I normally do. Not many to use but here are some from the shoot.

Thanks to the guys responsible for the idea, Jonas and Ralf, DDB Brussels, great to work with even though I was feeling really shitty with the flu!

Thomas holding himself back…
Jonas, DDB creative art director.
Ralf, the other creative partner DDB
Martine, excellent 1st AD
Thomas, producer, happy
The fantastic Julian Hohndorf, DOP
Peter, DDB Creative Director with Ralf and Jonas
Ilse, EP at Caviar

NO SNOW….

One of the numerous hurdles we have making christmas spots, is the lack of cold and snow. On top of these minor issues, the major one for us was to find streets and a final location where there were no green leaves on trees (at christmas time it’s highly likely that there are no leaves left on the trees). Brussels is loaded with trees! They’re everywhere. That said, when you scout the same location at night, things do look very different and you can get away with what would probably be impossible in daytime.

Now that you know, you’ll probably see leaves everywhere!